Claire Foy Is Getting Ready to Say Good-Bye to The Crown

Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Luckily, Claire Foy won’t have to wear it much longer. Though the actress is currently playing Queen Elizabeth in the glamorous, aptly titled Netflix series The Crown, she’ll be stepping down after its second season. The third season will jump several years, meaning that she and co-star Matt Smith, who plays Prince Philip, must be replaced by older actors. And Foy, it turns out, is quite ready to say ta-ta to all that.

At the BFI & Radio Times Television Festival over the weekend, Foy said it wasn’t “a shock” to learn about the recast third season. “We always knew when we signed up to it,” said the actress, according to People. “And also, not to be funny, but it’s also a real plus.”

Indeed, committing to only two seasons of a TV show was music to Foy’s ears, she says. “As an actor, there’s nothing worse than the sound of ‘seven years.’ I’m sure to some people it sounds amazing, but to us it’s like, seven years of playing the same person? And this is a tough job, you know?”

What pressure could Foy possibly feel about playing the most famous, revered woman in England while simultaneously leading the most expensive show Netflix has ever put together? Who’s to say! Foy, who had just given birth to her first child before filming The Crown, also noted that doing a series like this one requires signing away “a lot of your life.”

Critics, thankfully, adored Foy’s sure-footed performance as the ever-evolving queen. The actress also walked away from awards season with a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance in The Crown. “I’m going to miss it terribly. But I just can’t wait to see where it goes. I just can’t wait,” she said.

Crown creator Peter Morganrecently teased that the series’s second season will pivot to focus more on Prince Philip. “I find him extraordinarily interesting—his childhood, again, you couldn’t make it up. The soul of Season 2 is about his complexity,” he said at a Royal Television Society event in March. Morgan kept mum, however, on whether the season would explore Philip’s alleged affairs. Rumors have abounded for years about Philip’s supposed adulterous behavior—but The Crown has yet to lean in to those whispers, only gently alluding that Philip has a slight case of wandering eye.

If Season 2 does delve into those details, it’ll be fascinating to see where Season 3 picks up, particularly since it involves a time jump. Then a new pair of actors will have the fresh triple pressure of playing the most famous royal figures in England, leading Netflix’s most expensive show and picking up where two lauded performers left off. Piece of cake. Foy sends her regards.

Hubba hubba! For a 1954 royal tour of Australia—taken the year after her coronation ceremony—the young queen wore slim white lace and gloves and actually carried a parasol to go with her wide-brimmed “cartwheel”-style straw hat. It’s all very New Look–ish—perhaps proof that at least at one point, she flicked through Vogue like the rest of us.

Photo: From News Ltd/Newspix/Rex USA.

Animal print and red lipstick on the Queen—watch out, Joan! With a soft pea-green velvet crushed beret and matching bouclé coat of the same color—prepare to see this concept reiterated—the Queen kicked it up a notch with an ocelot-fur scarf in 1958.

Photo: From Rex USA.

For the Royal Horticultural Society’s annual Chelsea Flower Show—the traditional May kickoff to the English summer social season—the Queen takes extra care to inspect the fragrance quotient of a carnation in her bandeau hat, printed to match the collar of her swing coat. This photograph dates from 1958, when bandeaus and swing silhouettes were the height of chic.

Photo: By Npa Rota /Rex USA.

The beginning of the floral-cap years, our personal favorites: Elizabeth wore a white-petaled hat (made en vogue at one point by Elizabeth Taylor) over sea-green bouclé and a diamond brooch for the Epsom Derby, held every June in Surrey. The year, 1962, was the first Jubilee-like celebration for the Queen, as it marked her 10-year anniversary on the throne.

Photo: By Reginald Davis/Rex USA.

The Queen was hard to miss during another celebration for her 90th birthday at Buckingham Palace. Her neon green dress and coat designed by Stewart Parvin included an equally bright matching hat by Rachel Trevor, which had hot pink flowers pinned to it for an extra pop of color.

Photo: By Ben A. Pruchnie/Getty Images.

The Queen has has been favoring headscarves for decades. She wore this sea-inspired one, featuring coral, fish, and sea sponges, while returning to London in February 2017 after spending her Christmas break at Sandringham House.

Photo: By Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images.

While attending the opening of a new development at the Charterhouse, the Queen wore a wool hourglass hat by Angela Kelly, woven with threads of pink, yellow, and green pastels. The hat featured a sequin-embellished flower that matched the trim on her coat.

Photo: By Chris Jackson/Getty Images.

Hubba hubba! For a 1954 royal tour of Australia—taken the year after her coronation ceremony—the young queen wore slim white lace and gloves and actually carried a parasol to go with her wide-brimmed “cartwheel”-style straw hat. It’s all very New Look–ish—perhaps proof that at least at one point, she flicked through Vogue like the rest of us.

From News Ltd/Newspix/Rex USA.

Animal print and red lipstick on the Queen—watch out, Joan! With a soft pea-green velvet crushed beret and matching bouclé coat of the same color—prepare to see this concept reiterated—the Queen kicked it up a notch with an ocelot-fur scarf in 1958.

From Rex USA.

For the Royal Horticultural Society’s annual Chelsea Flower Show—the traditional May kickoff to the English summer social season—the Queen takes extra care to inspect the fragrance quotient of a carnation in her bandeau hat, printed to match the collar of her swing coat. This photograph dates from 1958, when bandeaus and swing silhouettes were the height of chic.

By Npa Rota /Rex USA.

The beginning of the floral-cap years, our personal favorites: Elizabeth wore a white-petaled hat (made en vogue at one point by Elizabeth Taylor) over sea-green bouclé and a diamond brooch for the Epsom Derby, held every June in Surrey. The year, 1962, was the first Jubilee-like celebration for the Queen, as it marked her 10-year anniversary on the throne.

By Reginald Davis/Rex USA.

Turquoise turban—say that three times fast. In 1965, the Queen paired a vibrant turquoise dress with a tightly bound head wrap (plus her reliably less outré pearls, brooch, gloves, and frame bag). The turban would become one of her signature hats of the 60s and 70s.

By Denis Cameron/Rex USA.

Paging Esther Williams: here’s another swim-cap-inspired, towering floral creation, but this one in a splash of springy colors to match a floral printed coat, worn to a formal occasion in Malta in 1967.

By Reginald Davis/Rex USA.

In 1969, a young Charles knelt at his formal investiture as Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester—he was 20 years old. And while Charles wore the formal crown and ermine-trimmed, royal-purple cape of the British monarchy, Elizabeth wore a sunny pale-yellow hat. She would repeat the optimistic color at the 2011 wedding of Charles’s son William to Kate Middleton.

By Reginald Davis/Rex USA.

Class portrait? The Queen sticks out like a green thumb in a sea of her red Yeomen of the Guard, who keep the peace at Buckingham Palace. While they’re in the official regimental feathers, ruffs, and gossamer Tudor hats (brims are a strict 2.75 inches!) of the unit, the Queen wears a double-breasted green coat and matching wide-brimmed, ribbon-trimmed hat in the front row.

By Reginald Davis/Rex USA.

A royal falcon gets the animal-loving Queen’s inspection in 1974, for which she wears a buckle-front bulbous hat—nothing too shiny to attract an unexpected peck.

From Rex/Rex USA.

Dotty for turbans! Welcoming the acidic yellows, browns, and oranges of the mid-1970s with open arms, the Queen tops a yellow polka-dot dress with a turban of the same fabric, radiating monarchical heliocentricity for a state visit to sunny Mexico.

By Reginald Davis/Rex USA.

No, this is not the Queen’s interpretation of the Beatles’ straight-banged fringe—it’s a feather cloche of some persuasion, which she wore on a 1976 visit to the royal accountant, Sir Richard Leech. We imagine them holed up in a vast marble locker, counting teetering pillars of gold coins, after which Sir Richard judiciously plunks a few into her outstretched feather cap.

By Mike Hollist/Daily Mail/Rex USA.

For the Silver Jubilee, celebrated throughout 1977 to honor the Queen’s 25 years on the throne, she jaunted off to Canada—much as Prince William and Kate did recently. Canadian climes required a departure from all those turbans and sunny florals—she’s seen here in a fox-fur Cossack hat in the chilly October Ottawan air.

By Brian Bould/Daily Mail/Rex USA.

It’s all about islands style, mon: ditching the fur for a tropical head scarf, the Queen ventured to Fiji—a British colony until 1970—in her Silver Jubilee year. Off duty back in England, she often wears a scarf over her head, but tied under her chin—and in lieu of island prints, she favors pastoral iconography such as sunflowers or pheasants.

By Reginald Davis/Rex USA.

Shown in 1979 in the hat that shares a name with her grand Scottish countryside estate—Balmoral Castle, in Aberdeenshire—the Queen wears her own interpretation of a traditional “Balmoral hat,” rendered in icy blue satin with a silk pouf rather than the traditional felted wool.

By Reginald Davis/Rex USA.

For the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer—viewed around the world by an estimated 750 million people—the Queen again chose an icy blue color, this time a pleated coatdress with a hat encircled in the back by appliquéd blue blooms.

From Rex USA.

Nancy Reagan and the Queen stand together at the American president’s June 1982 visit to England; both women ward off the summer sun with wide brims, but Nancy chose a California-inflected Western cowboy style, while Elizabeth opted for classic, flower-encircled straw.

From Rex USA.

This time in the Solomon Islands in 1982, the Queen sips a fruity local elixir of some kind while glancing jealously at the headgear of her counterpart, made from beadwork and shells. Her own upturned white straw hat with red piping does look comparatively ho-hum.

By John Shelley/Rex USA.

Tally ho! Back at the races in 1982, the Queen wears a traditional creased-crown cavalier hat with no brim—beplumed extensively with ostrich feathers—at Royal Ascot. Today, fascinators have become so en vogue that the racecourse mandates a full hat like Elizabeth’s as part of its dress code, banning mere feather headbands.

By Hugh Routledge/Mail On Sunday/Rex USA.

Who said it was Kate Middleton responsible for making a massive spray of three-dimensional frippery cool? The Queen did it first, and here in 1983, she did it in polka dots—over a dotted-coat-and-dress ensemble sits her dotted turban with a profusion of feathers.

By Walters/Daily Mail/Rex USA.

In homage to the flag of Hong Kong, which features a white bloom in a sea of crimson, the Queen dots her wide berry hat with a white flower for a visit to the 1986 Sha Tin horse races in the country, at the time under British rule.

From Rex USA.

A rare moment when the Queen’s most adorable accessory wasn’t her hat: with towheaded Prince Harry (left) and Prince William (right, doing finger binoculars) in the foreground, the Queen surveys a summer match at the Guards Polo Club in a blue straw derby hat. The boys would go on to become aficionados of the sport.

From Rex/Rex USA.

A pillbox in a pair of pinks—bashful and blush?—for a 1990 giggle (in sunglasses!) with Fergie, Duchess of York, while attending the Braemar Highland Games in Scotland. (Think ancient Scottish Olympics—in kilts.) The pair, seen on good terms, is pictured six years before Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson would announce their decision to divorce.

By Eddie Boldizsar/Rex/Rex USA.

Shown in high spirits on her South African tour in 1995, the Queen wears an animal-print silk coatdress (with era-appropriate shoulder pads, it appears) and a fetching teal wide-brimmed hat, brim upturned.

From Times Newspapers Ltd/Rex USA.

The Queen wears a peach-melba-colored, silk-swathed version of the traditional Chinese “coolie” hat to honor the state visit of the Finnish president. Thanks to the weather, she was able to enjoy the cool(ie) breeze in one of Buckingham Palace’s open landaus. O.K., we’ll stop.

From Times Newspapers/Rex USA.

*Cin cin, *old girl—the Queen with her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, at London’s millennial celebrations! We hope she’s offering this toast of champagne not to the new year but to the last few moments of monarchical existence before Y2K explodes Tony and Cherie Blair (seen just behind her, in the background).

From Rex USA.

With the brim of her hat turned up, the Queen can see her people—but not the three writhing naked bodies behind her, in 2003 at the Hayward Gallery in London.

From Rex USA.

Since having entered what we can only describe as her “Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland phase,” the Queen has favored asymmetrical, half-quashed Mad Hatter hats in recent years. They still accompany matching coats, pearls, brooches, and gloves, however—proving she’s really the most fashion forward with her headgear. Here on a trip to Africa in 2007, she wears an askance hot-pink hat with sky-blue wispy trim.

By Tim Rooke/Rex USA.

With her fox-fur headband, a tweed coat, and a softly lopped scarf held in place with a brooch, the Queen’s cushier, more pastel elder style is a sharp contrast to her primary-color turbans of the 1970s. Here, she clutches a yellow rose while celebrating Christmas at Sandringham, her other country estate, in 2010.

By Geoffrey Robinson/Rex/Rex USA.

For the occasion of the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Queen wore the ultimate shade of optimism—primrose yellow—topped with a crepe hat featuring handmade yellow-silk roses and warm apricot-colored leaves. The beading at the neckline of her coatdress—designed by her longtime go-to dressmaker, Angela Kelly—reportedly mimicked the rays of the sun.

By Tim Rooke/Rex/Rex USA.

Throughout 2012’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, the Duchess of Cambridge (the former Kate Middleton) has joined Her Majesty for a variety of engagements across England. They’ve apparently grown quite close—and seem completely in step here, in Leicester, wearing hats perched at an angle. The Queen is in fuchsia and black wool felt with button trim; Kate wears a dark James Lock hat with her L.K. Bennett jacket and dress.

By David Hartley/Rupert Hartley/Rex/Rex USA.

The Queen attended a thanksgiving ceremony held in honor of her 90th birthday at St Paul’s in London in June 2016, a couple of months after her actual birthday on April, 21. Though the ceremony was held on Prince Philip’s 95th birthday, he wanted the attention to be on Her Majesty, who stood out in a “primrose yellow coat, dress and hat,” as described by Buckingham Palace. The hat was designed by her senior dressmaker, Angela Kelly.

By Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images.

The Queen was hard to miss during another celebration for her 90th birthday at Buckingham Palace. Her neon green dress and coat designed by Stewart Parvin included an equally bright matching hat by Rachel Trevor, which had hot pink flowers pinned to it for an extra pop of color.

By Ben A. Pruchnie/Getty Images.

The Queen has has been favoring headscarves for decades. She wore this sea-inspired one, featuring coral, fish, and sea sponges, while returning to London in February 2017 after spending her Christmas break at Sandringham House.

By Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images.

While attending the opening of a new development at the Charterhouse, the Queen wore a wool hourglass hat by Angela Kelly, woven with threads of pink, yellow, and green pastels. The hat featured a sequin-embellished flower that matched the trim on her coat.